Dr. Ali E. Abbas is Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering and Public Policy, a joint appointment between the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and the USC Price School of Public Policy. He previously served as the Director of the USC Neely Center for Ethical Leadership and Decision Making (DECIDE) and the USC Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE).
Before joining USC, Dr. Abbas was the Art Davis Faculty Scholar in the Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prior to his time at the University of Illinois, Dr. Abbas was a lecturer in the Department of Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University, where he also earned his Ph.D. in Management Science and Engineering, Ph.D. minor in Electrical Engineering, M.S. in Engineering Economic Systems and Operations Research, and M.S. in Electrical Engineering.
The recipient of multiple awards from the National Science Foundation for his work, Dr. Abbas’ research focuses on decision analysis, risk analysis, multiattribute utility theory, and data-based decision making. He is widely published in books, journals, and conference publications, and has shared his expertise through television appearances, TEDx and other invited talks.
Dr. Abbas regularly teaches courses on decision analysis, and has taught numerous executive education courses at a variety of institutions, such as Stanford University, BP, Southern California Edison and numerous other institutions.
In addition to his academic career, Dr. Abbas is founder, president, and CEO of Ahoona Corp, a decision making social network that has several thousand users around the world. He has been on the Advisory Boards of Hedgestreet Inc., a binary futures exchange, and is a board member of the Decision Education Foundation, a volunteer nonprofit organization that empowers youth to make better decisions about their lives. Dr. Abbas also has extensive consulting and management experience.